To triple the voice-carrying capacity of coaxial cable, Bell Laboratories engineers had to create new amplifying tubes with the grid placed only two-thirds of a hairs breadth from the cathode. Furthermore, the grid wires had to be held rigidly in position; one-quarter of a hairs shifting would cut amplification in half.

In rural communities clusters of mail delivery boxes at the crossroads evidence Uncle Sam’s postal service. Here the neighbors trudge from their homes—perhaps a few yards, perhaps a quarter mile or so—for their mail.

Comprehensive as is the government postal system, still the service rendered by its mail carriers is necessarily restricted, as the country dweller knows.

Whether it be the installer in the house, the people in our offices, the operators or the lineman on the roadside helping to rescue a stray kitten for a worried youngster, telephone workers are close to the public and the tradition of the job is helpfulness.

In rapid-fire order, this girl at one of Western Electric’s factories attaches wires to Bell telephone equipment she’s helping to make. That “gun” in her hand is a wire-wrapping tool newly developed by Western Electric engineers that fastens the wires better, faster, with less cost than ever before.

In the eye of a needle above is a transistor switch that can turn on or off in ten billionths of a second. It is an example of the micro-miniature devices that Western Electric makes today for the new Electronic Switching Systems now being put into service in the Bell telephone network.